Huge efforts to ensure 'not one drop' of vaccine wasted in South Tyneside amid reports of supplies being diverted

Bosses insist they are ‘working extremely hard to make sure there is zero wastage’ of jabs, amid reports the Government has been diverting doses away from the North East to areas where the roll-out has been slower.

But attention is also starting to turn to ensuring there are enough staff to keep the programme going over the coming months.

“You will not believe the efforts that we’re going to make sure that not a single drop of this, the most precious commodity on the planet at the minute, [is wasted],” said Matt Brown, director of operations at South Tyneside Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

“We’ve got things like short notice lists of people we can call in if we get an extra dose out of a phial.

“If people perhaps get mixed up with a day to attend, we’re able to call the people in.”

It comes as the Gazette and its sister titles run the Shot in the Arm campaign, calling for the UK’s network of 11,000 local pharmacies to be used as vaccination centres to boost the roll-out.

Teams of pharmacists are already being deployed to administer the vaccine to housebound patients in South Tyneside.

Mr Brown was speaking at a meeting of the CCG’s governing body, which was held by videolink and broadcast via YouTube.

Most people in the borough’s top three priority groups, covering the over 75s and care home staff and residents, have had their first vaccine dose.

A ‘very small number’ have also had a second jab, due to a change in Government guidelines after the programme had already started.

Across the UK, more than seven million people have had at least one dose of a vaccine, with the Government’s official target to have reached 15 million by mid-February.

But with many of these expected to begin returning for second doses from March, as well as those also awaiting a first jab, Brown added bosses would have to be ‘clear about where our vaccinators are’.

He said: “We’ve got a huge programme up and running very quickly and the next step of moving it to a more business as usual footing is a challenge.

“How do we get into a regular routine, using the mass vaccination sites and our local vaccination sites together?

“We’ve got a lot of work to do about how we make it a really sustainable model.”

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